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TO THE EDITOR
Uni-track education
The controversial uni-track education system is finally postponed for a year. There are chances that it would never be implemented in its present form. Science is neglected in this system, and believed to degrade our primary and secondary education system. It is strange that the bureaucrats and politicians did not think of consulting with the country's educationists before thinking of implementing it. Thanks to Prof Zafar Iqbal of Shahjalal University and others, who tried to prevent it from being implemented. Now we should ask the government, about the huge amount of public money spent for planning of uni-track education. Can a poor country like ours afford such a huge loss of money for the experiment of our bureaucrats and politicians? We should also ask the government to investigate into how the money is
spent by these people responsible for the implementation of unitrack education system.
Haidar
Toronto, Canada
Weekly holiday
I fully endorse the letter of Rezaul Huq from Lalmatia entitled "Weekly holiday and man hour wastage" published in the letter column of your newspaper. I wish the present BNP coalition government realised the importance of working on Friday with an hour break for the mandatory prayer for the Muslims as it is practised in many other countries. I quote the PM and Mr. Abdul Mannan Bhuyian, "We are a Moderate Muslim Country" not an Islamic Republic like Pakistan or Iran. Since we are a moderate Muslim Country with only 85% of the entire population being Muslims, we can easily switch over from Friday to Sunday as our weekly holiday. I am sure the change will
help the present and future governments to help Bangladesh come out of the number one position of the “most corrupt country in the world.” We have had enough, nothing concrete has been done to reduce corruption.
Therefore, I firmly believe that changing the weekly holiday from Friday to Sunday will greatly help our country, we need to work on Friday and compete with the developed countries and not the underdeveloped ones.
Taher J.
Sharjah, U.A.E.
Alternative energy options
It is reported that the Honourable Prime Minister has approved setting up of an independent unit for expediting use of renewable and alternative source of energy for generating electricity. It is to be named: Sustainable Energy Development Authority. I welcome this,
more so as I presented two technical papers in IEEE (Bangladesh Chapter) in 2002 and 2004 on two aspects of the subject. These very viable and unique opportunities for power source (one with no fuel needed!) should be important issues for the newly created SEDA.
It seems that possibly more emphasis is on power generation, and not on renewable energy ; which includes sources like biofuels, all energy efficient appliances among others. There are viable and attractive avenues of exploration some of which also need to be incorporated in our import tariff structure. The impact of hybrid (very low fuel consuming) automobiles and other road transport vehicle is another area which can reduce our import of liquid fuel by over half the present figure! Furthermore, the possibility of producing biodiesel and ethanol from agricultural residue, wood waste and animal offal opens up interesting prospects of fuel for the
road and riverine transport sector. All these and more can be explored if we actively take up the challenge and not get bogged down in bureaucratic tangles.
At least a start in the right direction has been made; better late than never! Since it has been my favorite subject; one may call it a hobby; I would love to participate in this worthwhile journey!
S. A. Mansoor
Gulshan, Dhaka
Who builds the nation?
In a democracy, it is people who decide who will rule, and in turn, the rulers along with all their principles, ideals and values are expected to reflect popular demands and choices. Furthermore, the dedicated and resourceful political brains are supposed to work out far reaching policies and programmes for the welfare of the people and the country, which would command the
respect of the countrymen.
In a rich political culture, the rulers can ignore the valued opinions and criticisms of the civil society, rather the well-thought-out, diverse and far-reaching programmes to do good to the society are true examples of their philanthropic, creative and welfare-motivated thinking. In contrast, in a poor political culture, the so-called politicians, the power-greedy malevolent people, are busy sidestepping the
insightful opinions, analyses and reviews on socio-political progress of the country. In such an ill-fated country, the rulers, right after their rise to power, are surprisingly found caught in a circle of malicious viruses like corruption, favouritism, misuse of power, tampering of laws to serve self-interests, absorbing party-branded activists in administration, influencing the judiciary to legitimise the unlawful activities, making parliament to pass laws
only on majority merit, and many other ill practices. All their sanctified (?) works are in fact devoted to evading the will of the people, the aspirations of the society!
Our experiences say that our leaders seem to have the solutions to all problems - they know how to educate the nation rapidly, how to break the poverty circle overnight, how to make a healthy nation, how to ensure social security and what not. But the reality is different -when the civil society alleges that most of the citizens suffer from insecurity of life and feel the absence of social justice, the rulers claim complete security of life; when the former alleges that the poor people of the country are getting poorer day by day, the latter claim that the country is overflooded with development; when the former alleges quality of education is falling gradually, the latter are happy with the misadjusted literacy rate.
How the rulers think has been
proved faulty again and again. When the social researchers and the newspapers were repeatedly warning the governments of the rise of strong extremist groups with serious threats to social and national life, the governments not only ruled out their warning, but also went as far as planning to curb newspapers . These anti-social elements, the blood-sucking vampires, could show up, we think just of because of the government's indulgence.
The political ideals are now a distant past. The political parties are now empowered by the businesspeople-turned businesslike politicians who act on tactics rather than on ideals. So, the fundamental differences in principles, objectives, ideals or declarations in the party constitutions are no more a factor, because these can easily be put aside when the sole concern is power.
Saidur Rahman
Mirpur, Dhaka